Farm Radio named Top 2 International Charity in Canada: Maclean’s magazine

Farm Radio International is honoured this year to be named among Maclean’s magazine’s best 10 international charities in Canada. We can’t overstate how proud we are! 

We tied in the rankings for second position with three other organizations — charities whose work we greatly respect: The Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Emergency Relief and Development Overseas, and Opportunity International Canada. We’d equally like to congratulate them for all of their hard work.

Of course, we owe this in large part to you, our donors and supporters. You’ve placed your trust in us to steward your money, and your support has allowed us to make a big impact in the lives of small-scale farmers and rural Africans. 

Our drive for increased transparency and impact

This year, we’ve worked especially hard to reach this standing among charities in Canada. 

We always post our Annual Report and financial statements online, to make sure that you can see what it is we are working on, and how we are spending your generous donations. 

We also wanted to do some additional reporting back to you. In 2015 we created a set of Strategic Intentions to guide us towards 2020. As we reach the end of our five-year cycle to work towards these goals, we checked in with ourselves to see what we achieved — and what we didn’t. You can read our progress report here. 

We also want to make sure the most money possible goes towards reaching disadvantaged communities in Africa. We do our best to keep our overhead low, so that your money can be put in the places that need it most, while at the same time make sure that we are paying our staff, both here in Canada and in our country offices a fair wage. This year, we’re proud to report that our combined administration and fundraising expenses totalled 15 per cent — meaning we spend 85 per cent of all the money we raise to directly benefit rural communities. 

You can be assured that your donation will go far — all through the power of radio.

Farm Radio ties for 17th best charity in Canada: Maclean’s

We’re also exceptionally proud that among all charities in Canada, those who work nationally or internationally, we tied for 17th in Canada’s best charities 2020 top 100 list, according to Maclean’s.

Maclean’s uses data from Charity Intelligence to determine their rankings, and assesses them based on their overhead ratio costs, their fundraising ratio costs, their charity reserves, compensation of executives and average compensation of staff, ease of access to their financial statements, and their results transparency. 

According to Maclean’s we scored 95 per cent on our final grade, with our financial grade scoring 100 per cent and our transparency grade scoring 88 per cent. 

Farm Radio International makes Charity Intelligence Top 100 List

Farm Radio International is especially proud of our long-standing strong score with Charity Intelligence.

Charity Intelligence is an Canadian oversight organization that looks into each charity and their audited financial statements to compare and grade the charitable sector. 

We’ve worked hard to achieve and maintain our four-star rating with Charity Intelligence, as well as our A- standing for our results reporting — and we’re always working to do better! We will continue to push for more efficient use of funds and to truly have a tangible impact on the lives of millions that rely on the communication services we support.

Our commitment to you

While we’re celebrating in our success this year, we don’t take this lightly. We also understand that charity rankings are not the end of the story. We will continue to strive to protect the data of our supporters. We will strive to portray our overseas partners truthfully and with dignity. And lastly, we will strive to further increase our transparency.

We will continue to make sure your money is used in the best way possible to make an impact. And we want to find new and better ways to report back on the work we do, our financials and how we use your donations to impact the lives of millions of rural people across sub-Saharan Africa.

To find out what we got up to during the 2018-19 fiscal year, read our Annual Report here.

If you’re feeling inspired, please help us in our effort to support farmers in Tanzania deal with the effects of climate change.